Volume 2

A cyclopaedia of costume or dictionary of dress, including notices of contemporaneous fashions on the continent : a general chronological history of the costumes of the principal countries of Europe, from the commencement of the Christian era to the accession of George the Third / by James Robinson Planché.

  • Planché, J. R. (James Robinson), 1796-1880.
Date:
1876-1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A cyclopaedia of costume or dictionary of dress, including notices of contemporaneous fashions on the continent : a general chronological history of the costumes of the principal countries of Europe, from the commencement of the Christian era to the accession of George the Third / by James Robinson Planché. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CHAPTER II. A.D. 450—1066. EARLY at the same time that the Saxons obtained a footing in Britain, their cousins, the Franks, established themselves in Gaul. In 449 three Saxon ships (cyules or keels) arrived from Jutland at Ebb’s-fleet, in the Isle of Thanet, near Richborough. The leaders are said to have been called Hengist and Horsa, both names signifying a horse and pre- sumably assumed, and, after being employed by the Britons to assist them against the Piets and the Irish, made peace with the former, and, largely reinforced by their countrymen, turned their swords on their former allies, and in 457 established themselves in the county of Kent.1 In 451 Aetius defeated Attila at or near Cabillonum (Chalons), and saved Gaul from the domination of the Goths, but unconsciously led to the subjection of it by another nomadic race, who had twice invaded it unsuccessfully in the previous century. These were the Franks. A tribe of them, led by a young, enterprising, and valiant chieftain, named Mere-wig, which in their language signified “great or renowned warrior,” and was latinized into the more euphonious form of Merovechus or Meroveus,2 had volunteered or been subsidized by Aetius to fight on the side of their former foes, against the new hordes of barbarians which were swooping down on the expiring Empire of the West. As the price of his services, the valiant Frank took pos- session of the whole of that portion of Gaul situated between the Seine and the Rhine, having Lutetia (Paris) for its western frontier, and Tournay for its capital. Rome, too enfeebled to resist, silently sub- mitted to the spoliation of her provinces ; and at the same time that Merewig established himself in this corner of Gaul, the Vandals cap- tured Carthage, and the West or Visigoths overran Celtiberia. As the costume of the Belgic Britons receives its best illustration from that of the Gauls, the apparel and armour of the Anglo-Saxons will have much light thrown upon them by an examination of those of the Franks, who inherited from their chief the appellation of Merovingians. The earliest illuminated Saxon MSS. in the British Museum, on the dates of which we can depend, are the splendid copy of the Gospels known as ‘ The Durham Book,’ having been written by Eadfrid, Bishop of Durham, and illuminated by his successor, Bishop Ethelwold, about the year 720, and a book of grants by King Edgar to the Abbey of Winchester, written in letters of gold in 966. The first, however, contains only representations of the four Evange- lists, copied apparently from some of the paintings brought over by early missionaries, and therefore 1 Saxon Chron. 12, 13; Bede, lib. i. cap. 15 ; Ethelward, p. 833. Merovechus h quo cognominati sunt Merovingi.” (Sigebert, Chron.) “ Meroveus h quo Franci Merovimei appellati sunt.” (Roricornis Gesta Francorum.) VOL. II. p. Aetius. From an ivory diptych.